The purpose of the fixed camera was to give them more control in how the game was presented, trying retain some feel of the 2d games in a new totally 3d enviornment. A lot of people didn't dig it, I guess.

Started playing Castlevania 64 again and remembered that I need a memory pak to save my games...heh... I hated N64 games that didn't support saving to the cart and I totally forgot that this was the game that made me originally buy a memory pak back in 99. History repeating itself yet again :)